His name was Armin Meiwes, a seemingly mild-mannered computer engineer from Germany. To the world, however, his notorious crimes earned him an even more sinister nickname: Rothenburg’s Cannibal. Drawing from extensive archival footage and rare interviews with Meiwes himself, Interview with the Cannibal is a provocative documentary investigation of one of the most bizarre and sensational crimes in recent recorded history.
The case against Meiwes is complicated by the victim’s complete willingness to be the object of his cruelty. Cannibals in Wait posted an advertisement on the website, inviting a grown male to volunteer to be slaughtered and eaten. Not long after, an engineer named Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes agreed. Meiwes recorded every step of the terror on videotape. He cut up, stored and frozen parts of Brandes’ body and began feeding on him for months.
The filmmakers are chasing Meiwes in prison, where he is currently serving a life sentence. They spoke of his childhood, marked by the ravages of abandonment, an overbearing mother, an isolated “outsider” status among his peers, distorted sexual development, and a growing fascination with the idea of killing and eating boys. These desires are sexual in nature and depend on the full consent of the victim to participate.
As the film delves deeper into his life story, audiences become aware of a series of sometimes surprising and sometimes frightening revelations. There are several key moments in his journey that may have led him to a more stable and productive life, as evidenced by his solid military service and brief marital flirtations. But with his mother’s death and other failed promises of intimacy, he turns to the internet and discovers a thriving underground world of cannibalistic fetishes. This discovery hastened the final stages of his psychological free fall and allowed him to live out his darkest fantasies.
Not for the faint of heart, Interview With a Cannibal is a fascinating journey into the psychology of monsters and a must-read for true crime buffs.
